DESCRIPTION (from abstract): The proposed research concerns the prospects for enriching spatial perception in the blind via a digital, video-based camera whose projected image transformations are transduced into analogous image transformations on a newly developed electrotactile array. Since dynamic patterns of electrotactile stimulation can reproduce important properties of optical stimulation, which themselves can support useful perceptual descriptions of 3-space and events, it may be possible to determine the extent to which such reproductions lead to successful perception and action in 3-space by the blind. The research proposal is focused, in Phase I, on the prerequisite perceptual-motor control necessary to explore such prospects more fully. Three experiments are described. We propose to examine the extent to which important properties of optic flow (the changes in optic field associated with self-movement or object motion) are detected, interpreted and acted upon in real-time situations.We propose to examine this perceptual-motor control, and its progress, with congenitally blind, adventiously blind and sighted subjects. The outcome of the research will enable us to anticipate such prospects for spatial enrichment in the blind as well as to better hone the functional characteristics of the technology to serve the needs of the blind.